Integration or Resegregation: Metropolitan Chicago at the Turn of the New Century

Authors:
Guy Stuart, Ph.D.

Date Published:
May 01, 2002

The data show that the Chicago metropolitan area is at an extremely important point in its racial and ethnic history. The White population can continue to turn its back on their African- American and Latino counterparts, in a fruitless effort to escape them. Or they can embrace them and, in unison, build an integrated metropolitan area.

Executive Summary

Consistent with other studies based on the 2000 Census Data, this study finds that racial and ethnic segregation persists in the Chicago Six-County Metropolitan area. The focus of this study is on segregation across municipalities and school districts. It also examines the dynamics of racial and ethnic change through the analysis of annual home purchases drawn from data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Though it finds extensive segregation across suburbs and school districts, it also identifies neighborhoods and suburbs that are integrated or offer integration opportunities. Some major findings of this study are:

African-American/White and Latino/White segregation persists across the whole metropolitan area.

67% of all African-Americans living in an incorporated suburb would have to move to a different suburb to achieve integration with White suburbanites.

Half of all Latinos living in an incorporated suburb would have to move to a different suburb to achieve integration with White suburbanites.

The home buying patterns of African-Americans and Latinos show that the situation is likely only to get worse. Both groups are buying homes segregated from Whites and from each other.

Nevertheless, there are neighborhoods and suburbs, such as Hyde Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Oak Park that provide good examples of how integration is possible, and there are a number of suburbs, such as Des Plaines, West Chicago or Bolingbrook, that offer considerable integration opportunities.

The people most likely to suffer the consequences of segregation are children

To create integrated African-American/White suburban school districts, 68% ofall African-American children would have to move to a different school district to be integrated with White suburban children.

To create integrated Latino/White school districts half of all Latino children would have to move to a different school district to be integrated with White suburban children.